


to you he is a room

by punkpadfoot



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:09:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkpadfoot/pseuds/punkpadfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s happy now—the weather is warm and the grass is soft and there’s still a pleasant buzz in his head. Jack is close enough to touch. Right now, summer’s end feels distant, less of a looming presence and more of an exit they’ve yet to reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to you he is a room

**Author's Note:**

> alternative title: GOT YOUR BODY ON MY MIIIIIIIND  
> alternative summary: Kent Parson, internally: *banging pots and pans* I'M SO GAY I'M SO GAY AAAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> this is only half of this hell fic!! find the other half (by my favorite person ever, [sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch)) [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4857836).
> 
> thanks to [idrilka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilka/pseuds/idrilka) for beta reading this, you're the best. :)))

“How do you not know this song?” Kent demands, his eyebrows furrowed together because what the literal fuck, but he’s laughing, too. “Come _on_.”

Jack doesn’t seem to get what’s so funny about it, had shoved Kent back a little before he could get through the second line of _hey baby_ ’s that all the girls say and given him a weird look like _he_ was the strange one for being familiar with early 2000s hits. Kent rolls his eyes while Jack shakes his head and turns, gesturing for him to follow, but his second drink is now empty and he wants to keep this buzz rolling, so he heads back down the hall to the kitchen instead.

It’s a weird party, a strange mix of kids their own age and a handful of older home-from-college types, and it sounds like a bratty preteen girl is fighting with a mid-twenties hipster fuck for control of the music, if the playlist thus far is anything to go by. It’s not too bad, though—there are a lot of people, most of whom Kent doesn’t know (which has, lately, been preferable), the alcohol appears to be plentiful (and no one’s said anything about the fact that they didn’t bring a bottle to contribute), and Jack had agreed to come with him (never really a question, and yet somehow always a pleasant surprise).

In the kitchen, there’s a girl swinging her legs from where she’s seated on the counter, and she insists to Kent that she’s the bartender, so he lets her make him another Malibu and pineapple with an alarmingly high alcohol-to-juice ratio. It’s enough to make him wince a bit, which she seems to find incredibly funny, and she sends him on his  way with a slurred, “No returns.”

Jack is right where Kent expects him to have headed off to, sitting on the end of the couch, though he’d apparently attracted the attention of a circle of kids who had been drunkenly chattering away before. From the look on his face, he’s a bit less than happy with this development. Kent takes a sip of his drink and catches the tail-end of a pretty dark-haired girl’s earnest question, and understands why.

“—go first? Or Parson?”

There’s suddenly a bitter taste in his mouth that’s got nothing to do with too much rum. He swallows and smiles anyways, both the corner of his mouth and an eyebrow quirking upwards.

“Seriously? He had me by _how_ many points this season?” Not that many, actually. He hazards a guess that none of them know the numbers off the tops of their heads, save Jack, and doesn’t worry about being called on it.

Sliding up half onto the arm of the couch and half onto Jack, his heels press lightly against the outside of Jack’s thigh. His free hand runs up the back of Jack’s arm and settles on Jack’s shoulder, under the guise of steadying himself, and he imagines he can feel the rapid thumping of Jack’s heartbeat reverberating through his bones—knows he can’t, not really, but lets his fingers rest lightly against Jack’s collar anyways. He knows that this conversation is always the kind that gets under Jack’s skin, can feel the tension in Jack’s shoulder; he doesn’t really have to be looking or touching to sense his discomfort, doesn’t get how they can’t feel it radiating off of him in waves and take the goddamn hint. There’s probably something to be said for this, about how Jack’s unease is so glaringly obvious to him while others barely seem to notice, makes him wonder what version of Jack they’re seeing since it’s clearly so different from his own.

It irritates him almost as much as the question itself. It’s not that he blames this girl—everyone’s always asking, it’s not her fault for being Canadian and caring about hockey, she was just wired that way or whatever—but he is so fucking exhausted by this conversation, the constant buzz of little mosquitoes in their ears asking _first? first? first?_ that he just can’t manage to swat away. He’s sick of the questions, the way people look bored when they insist, no, really, they’re just really excited for the opportunity; it’s almost as bad as the way reporters smile condescendingly when they ask leading questions about Jack and he counters with nothing but unfaltering praise, as if that’s going to make him give up the line that’s going to make the rivalry they’ve been needling for before the season had even ended a reality. No one wants the real answer, not to those questions anyways—which has, over time, morphed from something more honest and eager to _I just can’t wait to get it over with_.

He just doesn't get what they're expecting him to say, when they ask how he thinks it'll pan out. He doesn’t _know_. That’s what all the fuss is about, that things are close enough to make Jack gnaw at his nails until they bleed and Kent’s veins thrum with a sort of excited disbelief because of course he _wants_ to go first. He'd be stupid to not want to go first. He's worked just as hard as Jack and has given up a lot, too, trading New York and his friends for Montreal and a team, leftovers from the restaurant his mom works at on the couch with his sister for Sunday night dinners with parents that, no matter how kind, aren't his family. He wouldn’t trade the past two years, knows he’s played his best hockey yet at Rimouski and specifically with Jack, but it wasn’t without purpose. It’s supposed to mean something, in the end.

And he knows he has a shot at it, too. They’d always played so well together because they’d always been evenly matched, complementary; for every con of Kent's, Jack offers a pro, and vice versa, regardless of numbers. Jack might have a legendary dad to give him a boost, but Kent’s never resented, let alone envied, the attention Jack gets for it, and it can only carry him so far anyways. Where the media has been critical of Jack since Kent had started skating with him, snide implications of nepotism and the ever-present focus on all of the ways he fails to measure up to Bob, it has been surprisingly and yet consistently, through the last half of their season and so far into the summer, kind to Kent, who knows when to smile and when to joke and always has a story about forgoing video games for hockey gear when his mom was tight on Christmas cash. It’s not fair to Jack, who busts his ass just as hard as Kent does and can hardly catch a break sometimes, but there’s an ugly part in Kent that sometimes thinks _thank God that’s not me_.

Kent wants it bad, knows it’s possible. He thinks he might have even earned it.

But he knows that Jack wants it, too, in a way that's so fundamentally different from Kent, in a way that he doesn’t pretend that he understands. If Kent’s earned it, Jack has just as much—it’s not like Kent stayed late after practice or had a full workout under his belt by sunrise by himself—but for Jack it’s always seemed to be less about what he deserves and more what he thinks he has to prove. Kent doesn’t ever ask what that might be, just like he doesn’t ask why Jack’s shoulders get so tense when people are watching him off the ice or why his palms get so sweaty after a conversation with his dad. It’s not that he thinks it’s not his business, or that he doesn’t care. He just—doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to say it, and doesn’t think that Jack would have the words to explain it, either. So he trusts his gut, acknowledges the unspoken part of all of this that tells him that this has and always will hold more weight for Jack than it does for him.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to him. First would be nice; first is the goal. But Jack is his best friend, and Kent knows he can easily stomach going second in a way that Jack can’t even begin to fathom. He knows he can be happy for Jack, if Jack goes first. He’s not sure Jack could do the same for him.

So he smiles, wide and charming like he’s good at, and swipes his thumb against Jack’s collar too, for good measure.

“Please,” he says, not only like it’s obvious, but like it’s easy. “He’s going to Vegas. I’ll be in LA, or maybe Tampa if I go third.” He huffs a laugh, takes a sip from his drink. “But God, I fucking hate Florida. My mom took my sister and me when we were kids. Fucking hell hole. Like an armpit.” He grins again, and they smile back at him, apparently appeased, but the damage is done and it’s time to go. “Anyway. Zimms, I did say we’d make an appearance elsewhere, so we gotta bounce.”  He stands, chugging down the rest of his drink and ignoring the way it settles uneasily in his stomach.

Jack follows suit, and he doesn’t think much of reaching over to curl his fingers into the crook of Jack’s elbow as they push their way out the front door.

It’s humid, the air thick and heavy but still somehow less stifling than it had felt inside. There are less people out here, a girl perched on the railing smoking a cigarette and watching two guys in the front yard argue with minimal interest. Her clearly more invested friend is on on one side of her, leaning over the railing, saying, “Guys, knock it off, come on.”

Kent drops his hand from Jack’s arm and takes to her other side, bumming two smokes off her and offering one to Jack, who shakes his head. He shrugs and tucks it behind his ear, then leans in to let the girl light it for him, cupping his hand around hers to help her block the imaginary wind. She doesn’t do more than raise her eyebrows at him, but the twitch at the corner of her lips gives her away, so he winks before setting off down the steps and heading down the driveway.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Jack says, because of course he does. It’s the same voice he uses when Kent tells him he’d rather eat three Big Macs and die than go for a run—less advisory, more bossy captain, but the one that Kent nevertheless generally listens to because it’s always the right thing to do. But it’s the off-season and summer and he feels a pleasant buzz beneath his skin from just enough rum; just because Jack can’t turn it off doesn’t mean that Kent can’t.

Besides, it doesn’t bother him, really, more amusing than anything, but he shoots back a mocking, “Gee, thanks, Dad.”

“Fuck off,” Jack says. “You’re an athlete.”

Kent snorts. “Zimms, I could smoke a pack a day and still outskate your ass.” It’s like the third cigarette of his life, if that. His athleticism has survived through worse.

“Your shots are gonna go wide if you have to stop and hack up a lung,” Jack says, and Kent laughs.

He can feel his last drink slowly hitting him, making things fuzzy around the edges in that soft, tipsy way that he’s found he likes things to be in the summer. It’s nice and easy, a gentle haze that makes the looming shadow of whatever is to come in a few weeks seem less dense.

After a moment, Jack continues, “We didn’t have to leave.”

Kent doesn’t answer right away, takes the moment to try to blow a few smoke rings—the party they were at last weekend had a hookah in the living room, and a college student home for the summer with bright red lips and a throaty laugh had tried (and miserably failed) to teach him how to do it. If he squints, they might have a shape, but if he’s being realistic, he’s just making stupid faces and blowing smoke, which could probably be some sort of metaphor for his overall behavior that he doesn’t feel like stretching to consider.

Anyways, the thing is, they kind of did have to leave. Between the grating irritation that the conversation had left Kent with, and how tightly it had wound Jack, yeah, it had been time to go. It’s not Jack’s fault or whatever, and he knows Jack’s only saying that because he thinks it is, which is stupid and annoying in itself. It’s not like Kent cares about some shitty little party, certainly not enough to be disappointed about ditching it.

“What do you mean?” is what he settles on eventually, evenly. “It was fucking lame, I was ready to get out of there.” Whatever Jack may think, he’s not lying to make him feel better. He glances down the road before starting to head across the street, stopping once he gets to the opposite curb to finally look at Jack. He looks tired, put upon in a way that he hadn’t when they’d left earlier, something hard and unhappy at the corner of his mouth. “You good?”

And he gets what he expects, Jack’s perfunctory answer of “I’m fine,” with no hint of hesitation. He sounds like he rehearses it in the mirror every morning.

It’s not like Kent can’t claim that he doesn’t act fake as shit (he literally just put on his camera smile for a group of drunk teenagers), but he doesn’t try to pull it with Jack and doesn’t get why Jack feels like he has to do it for him. It’s a tune Kent’s sick of hearing, makes him want to roll his eyes when he gets those bullshit answers, get shitty and say _yeah, okay_. Start a fight and get him to just say whatever the fuck is actually on his mind, because even his best guess usually only half hits the mark. Maybe it would help. He really has no idea, but he doesn’t do any of that, because he’s really not looking for a fight tonight.

“You sure?” is what he goes with instead, which he would assume is probably less inflammatory, until Jack snaps at him, a short, “Said I’m fine.” Which, whatever, man. Kent lets out an annoyed huff of air.

It’s quiet for a moment. Kent feels like something ugly just sat itself between them, and he’s not sure what it is beyond big and, clearly, unspeakable, until Jack pushes through whatever it is to knock his elbow against Kent’s. He finds himself leaning into Jack like there was never anything in the way at all.

“Thanks, Kenny,” Jack says, and Kent smiles.

“Let’s walk to the park or something,” Kent says a moment later, nodding down the street as they fall into step again. “It’s too fucking early to go home but everything else’ll be closed.”

“What? Want me to push you on the fucking swing or something?” Jack says, teasing. Kent grins, raising his eyebrows and something smart on the tip of his tongue, when Jack shoves past him at a run, calling over his shoulder, “Beat you to it.”

“Zimms!” He pauses to flick the half finished cigarette into the street before shooting after Jack. He’s faster than Jack on any day, when Jack’s not taking head starts, and collides into Jack in an attempt to send him sprawling, even though Jack’s as solid as a brick wall and that was never going to work. He tugs at the belt loop he’d hooked his fingers in anyways, and only just catches his footing when Jack hip-checks him. He shoves back and finds himself in a headlock that takes all his effort and elbowing to worm his way out of.

Kent’s laughing breathlessly when he shoves away from Jack, adjusting his hat and wandering over to the monkey bars, but his head is a little too fuzzy to throw a lot of faith in his balance, so when he climbs up, he pulls himself on top and slides his way to the middle rather than the unsteady tightrope act he’d been considering. Kicking his feet back and forth, he’s not shy about watching Jack pull himself up, gaze tracing across the curves of his biceps and the line of tension in his forearms in a way that makes his mouth feel dry.

Swiping his tongue across his lower lip, he mutters, “Showoff,” ignoring the way Jack grins up at him like he’s pleased with himself. He moves to shift his legs over, one of the bars digging into the backs of his knees, and drops to dangle upside down, smiling his own pleased as punch smile at Jack’s _oh my god_. His hat hits the ground and he stretches his arms down, running his fingers through the grass but leaving it where it is. The rush of blood to his head isn’t really helping to make the world any sharper, so he leans back up once things threaten to go tilted, on the verge of vertigo. He grabs the bar with his hands and shimmies his legs down in a way that probably looks ridiculous and is certainly ungraceful.

His core is still shouting at him in protest when he’s legs drop and he’s dangling upright once more, and he says, “Ow,” through a laugh, bracing himself for a lecture about slacking off during the summer that doesn’t come.

Instead, facing him now, he watches as Jack lowers himself to hang from the monkey bars, knees bent and the toes of his shoes skimming against the overgrown grass. When he starts to move forward, Kent stays resolutely put, but feels his grin fade away regardless, watches Jack watching him and is suddenly hyperaware of the way it makes his breath catch in his throat. A tingle of something starts at his toes and travels all the way through to his fingers, lightning quick. His palms feel sweaty in a way that he can't blame on the humidity or the sticky moisture that clings to the metal. He readjusts his grip. It’s—

Well, it would be embarrassing, if he had to verbalize it. He doesn't really know how to explain it. He likes to be the one to move first, to push when Jack won't, to watch him squirm in a good way and shoot Kent unreadable little looks that egg him on even further. He feels certain that way, sure of himself when he's playfully prodding Jack to keep up to the arbitrary pace he's set. But Jack's not content to only ever just follow, and it gives Kent that slack-jawed thrill of awe each time he's reminded that the enormity of whatever he feels that's sitting heavy in his chest, undefined but undeniably there, might be mirrored in any way in Jack.

It's an echo of the first time Kent had kissed him, the heart in his throat anticipation after, the rapid fire beat of his pulse as the challenge in his smile had faded. Jack had just looked at him, like he is now, in that way that still makes Kent feel raw and exposed, like Jack can see right through any layer of false bravado and know exactly what it is that Kent is feeling at will. He’d neither moved away nor leaned in; the locker room slowly started to fill, and they’d gotten ready for practice in silence. What had happened after practice, after the locker room had emptied once again, is muscle memory too—his body falls into the same reaction each time. The way his breath hitches when Jack leans in close. The drop in his stomach and the tightness of his heart in his throat, the way his body feels too big to fit in his skin. The way his shoulders, singing with tension, relax into the soft surprise of finding Jack’s mouth against his, rather than a fist, rather than a mouthful of blood and broken teeth.

Jack stops when their knees bump together. His fingers rest just on top of Kent's. He can feel the steady rise and fall of Jack's chest pressed close to his, feels the way his own breath stutters, and closes his eyes.

And then Jack breaks his grip on the bar and sends him sprawling in the grass, which maybe he would have seen coming if he hadn’t been so busy internally losing his cool.

“Zimms!” he snaps, and he feels his face flushing a hot red but he’s on the verge of laughing anyways. “Fuck off! Fuck you!”

Jack, of course, thinks this is all very hilarious, and he’s struggling to even get out his _gotcha!_ as he drops down from the monkey bars. Kent takes the opportunity, fairly warning through his own laughter, “I’m going to kick your ass,” as he kicks his leg out to hit Jack behind the knees. It sends Jack sprawling on top of him, so he shoves his elbow into Jack’s stomach for good measure.

His face is still hot and he’s still laughing when Jack settles over him and leans down to kiss him. His laugh throws itself a pitch quieter, something a little more breathy that he would want to kick his own ass for, actually, if he could bring himself to care. Jack’s mouth is hot against his, and he tastes like stale orange juice and vodka in a way that should be gross but that Kent likes anyways. He traces the nail of his thumb back and forth across the line of Jack’s hair on the back of his neck as he kisses his jaw, drags his teeth across a spot on Jack’s neck only just softly enough that there won’t be a mark, only gets him on the mouth once more before Jack is pulling away.

Kent breathes out hard through his nose, aware that the fact that his breath is coming and going so heavily is telling and tries to steady himself.  Jack is still close enough to touch, so he does, running his knuckles down his bicep and stopping at his elbow. He curls his fingers around it, rubs his thumb against the crease where Jack’s skin is softer without much thought.

Jack leans up and over him suddenly, and Kent starts to follow, urged by Jack’s hand on the back of his neck, but Jack doesn’t kiss him again. Jack’s forehead is pressed against his, sticky with sweat in a way that, once again, should be gross but somehow isn’t. Jack’s nose bumps against his, a bit of his hair tickling against Kent’s temple, and Jack seems to settle there, looking for nothing more than the close contact.

For as up in each other’s space as they’re always getting, there’s something about this that makes Kent’s stomach swoop in a way that is both pleasant and nerve wracking, like a drop on a rollercoaster. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ignore how his throat feels tight and his palms are getting sweaty all over again, like some fucking little kid with a crush—and that observation isn’t so much of a realization as it is a reminder, but it’s still enough to jolt him a little. It makes him want to roll away so he can smack a hand over his face and just tell himself to get it together, which is not only a ridiculous gesture in itself but a ridiculous gesture because clearly Jack already _knows_ , this isn’t particularly news or anything—it’s just a lot, sometimes. It’s easy to just move with it (or, at least, he likes to pretend it is), knowing it’s there but carrying on without acknowledging whatever this thing is that has wormed its way into his words and actions, but facing it trips him up like a hard check and a slip on the ice.

So, like a nervous kid with a crush, his voice sounds stupid and a little strained even to himself when he snorts a laugh and says, “Jesus Christ. What, we in one of your mom’s rom-coms right now?”

Except it’s the wrong thing to say, of course, because that’s such a _dick_ thing to say. He knows it as the words are leaving his mouth, the split second before Jack is jerking away from him, looking angry but mostly embarrassed. Kent’s mouth goes dry and he wants to snatch the words back and swallow them down, rewind the last ten seconds or something, but since that’s impossible he reaches out and grabs Jack, both to pull him back in and pull himself up closer.

“Hey,” he says, bumping his nose against Jack’s as he settles their foreheads back together again. “Didn’t say I minded. I like rom-coms.”

Kent can feel Jack’s breath against his lips and closes his eyes, forces himself to ignore whatever jittery—celebratory—acrobatics his insides are doing this time.

“And your mom,” he adds, knowing he shouldn’t but sniggering to himself anyways.

“Jesus,” Jack mutters, but doesn’t pull away. “You’re a dick, Parse, you know that?”

“Takes one to know one.”

With his nervous chirping out, it seems whatever’s going on with his heart and stomach calms, and this is actually kind of nice. No different than Jack’s hand on his shoulder or his knee pressed against Jack’s underneath a table, casual and comforting and bigger than anything either of them are willing to admit to. Touch has always been easier anyways, safer than words, which have a tendency to come out stilted or wrong or not at all. It’s hard to say that he cares, or that he’s worried; it’s easy to run his hand back up and down Jack’s arm and press his lip to the corner of his mouth before falling back into the grass.

They already don’t talk about it, and it’s just as easy for Kent not to think about the end of summer unless he has to. He’s happy now—the weather is warm and the grass is soft and there’s still a pleasant buzz in his head. Jack is close enough to touch. Right now, summer’s end feels distant, less of a looming presence and more of an exit they’ve yet to reach. They’re fine now. He’s pretty sure they’ll be fine then, too.

“Come on,” Jack says, breaking the silence and getting to his feet. “The beer back at the house is probably still cold.”

“Cool. It’s fucking hot out here,” Kent says, standing too. He runs his fingers through his hair and realizes he’d never picked his hat back up. He leans over to grab his hat, but Jack’s got it first, and Kent makes to snatch for it, but Jack holds it at a height that Kent could probably reach if he actually tried and then shoves it on his head, over that god awful mop of hair that Kent is probably sure looks worse than his own at the moment, an impressive feat.

Kent’s eyes flash and his lips twitch, but he says, “Whatever, keep it. You need a fucking haircut.” He watches Jack spin the hat around on his head and he looks ridiculous, so he makes one more lunge for it, holds back a snort of laughter as he accidentally knocks Jack against the side of his head. He yanks away when Jack grabs his wrist, brushes back his own hair a little self-consciously, and lets Jack keep the hat. He looks ridiculous and Kent feels terribly fond.

“You got any idea what street we’re on?” he says, glancing towards the flickering streetlight and then back to Jack, who opens his mouth to answer, but he’s cut off by a weird clicking noise. It takes all of two seconds for Kent to register, saying, “Oh shit—” but the sprinklers are sputtering to life before he can think to move. By the time they’re out of the grass, he’s soaked to the bone, shirt clinging to his skin and shoes slipping off the backs of his feet as they run back to the house.

The air conditioning is on full blast in Jack’s house, and between that and his wet clothes, Kent is covered in goosebumps by the time they reach Jack’s room. He pushes his wet hair back off his forehead to no avail, watching Jack open a beer and pull off his soaked shirt.

“Who runs the sprinklers at one in the morning?” he says, annoyed now that he’s cold. He takes the bottle from Jack and sips at it with a frown, kicking off his shoes and leaning over to pull off his socks as well, which are also wet. “My shoes are all fucked up.”

“You’re the one who started talking about romance movie bullshit,” Jack says, and Kent rolls his eyes. “You’re making a puddle man, take that shit off. Wear one of mine if you want.” Kent lets him take the bottle back and watches him disappear into the bathroom.

He pulls his shirt off and lets it hang off the back of the chair to Jack’s desk, where it proceeds to drip a puddle onto the floor anyways. The first dresser drawer he yanks open is just t-shirts and he’s too cold for just that, but the one below it is several hoodies and sweaters, and he finds himself suddenly hesitant, hand poised as if this is some sort of major life decision—abruptly, he shakes his head, mutters, “Jesus fuck, Parson,” and grabs one at random, pulling it on. It’s big on him, the sleeves hanging almost to the tips of his fingers.

He pushes them up as Jack steps back into the room, crossing the distance between them again to take the beer from his hand.

“Stop hogging that,” Kent says, knowing he could get his own. When he was a kid, he always used to drink from his mom’s cans of soda, insisting that hers tasted better than having his own. He supposes this is the same concept.

(Except his mom would say, “That’s because you love me,” and this isn’t—he doesn’t—you know, it’s—different. Not exactly like that but—something close, maybe.)

“What time is it?” he asks, doesn’t really listen to Jack’s answer and continues, “Cool.” His free hand presses against Jack’s bare chest, and he pushes him back against the doorframe before leaning up to kiss him, open-mouthed and with the intention that was lacking earlier.

“Parse, your jeans are fucking soggy,” Jack says, apparently thinking that’s the appropriate response to someone trying to get something started here. “I just put dry pants on—”

Kent heaves a sigh and only pulls away to nip at Jack’s neck instead, saying, “What you get for shoving me off that jungle gym.” He tries and fails to hold back a smile when he feels Jack’s fingers in his hair.

“Oh,” Jack says, “so you’re just being vindictive?”

“Maybe,” he says, tracing his fingers up and down Jack’s said. “What? Should I go stick ‘em in the dryer and wake everybody up? Bang a few pots and pans around while I’m at it?”

“You could just take them off and stop getting sprinkler water all over the place,” Jack says, and it takes all of Kent’s willpower to not immediately scramble out of his jeans, which should be embarrassing or something.

“Your subtlety needs a little work, Zimms,” he says instead, snorting. “And I’m not about to walk home in my boxers anyways.”

Kent doesn’t actually have any intention of going home tonight. He wants to stay, knows Jack wants him to say. But he’s being petulant, wants to hear him say it.

Jack pushes him back just enough to meet his eye, says, “Kenny, don’t be an idiot.”

“Oh,” Kent says, and leans up when Jack moves in to kiss him, because—well, that’s good enough for him.

 

\--

 

When Kent blinks himself awake, Jack is watching him.

It’s one of those things that he’s sure he’s chirped Jack for before, from a sly smile in a crowded room to a low _like what you see?_ as he finishes toweling off his hair in the locker room. He never means anything by it, nothing beyond that he notices Jack noticing him, has made a mental note of it, likes it, but sometimes it’s a misstep. This time, Jack flushes and rolls his eyes, but smiles; that time, Jack jerks back, won’t meet his eyes, responses short and clipped. Kent never knows how to judge it—for all the shit that he gives Jack about his boring predictability, he can never quite pin it down, sometimes doesn’t know how far is too far until he’s already there.

He doesn’t want to mess this moment up. There’s no urge to tease, anyways, no quickening of his pulse that begs for distance or the upper hand. He’s too warm, too sleep-addled, too—something that he can’t name.

He smiles instead, says, “Hey.” He yawns, moves his head carefully so as not to smack it against the wall that the rest of him is pressed against.

“Your knee is in my spleen,” is Jack’s answer, so Kent shifts, straightens his leg only to tangle it in between Jack’s, his heel pressed to Jack’s calf.

It’s too early to be awake. He can’t see the clock but can tell by the fuzzy yellow of the light peeking in through the blinds. It makes Jack’s hair look lighter than it is, soft and golden. One of Jack’s arms is between them, and as Kent moves his own to run his fingers down it, he feels like he did last night in the park, but also not. Vulnerable, but not raw. Open, but not exposed. He closes his fingers around Jack’s wrist, moves it to press his lips to the underside, just below his hand, brief but tender.

“This is nice,” he says as he lets go of Jack’s wrist. His fingers trace his way back up Jack’s arm, down his side, slip around to the back and underneath his shirt with no real purpose or intention beyond another point of contact. He drags them in slow and steady circles over the line of Jack’s spine, cracks a smile. “Nicer if you weren’t hogging the pillow though.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “My pillow, you know.”

Jack reaches forward, and when he pushes back the hair from his forehead, Kent closes his eyes, breathes in deep through his nose. His throat feels suddenly tight, stuck with things he knows better than to say even with the false bravery and openness that this half-awake state affords him. Jack moves his head to give Kent room, and Kent thinks, ridiculously, as he adjusts his head on the pillow, _I like you so much_. He opens his eyes again, wonders what it would be like to say it out loud. Stupid and embarrassing. Raw and exposed. It feels desperate even in his head, loud and insistent and like it’s meant to prove something.

Jack does it again, pushes back that stubborn bit of hair that Kent can’t even manage to hide beneath a hat, and Kent watches him the whole time.

He wonders if maybe he should say those things, sometimes. Most seem to go unsaid between them, knowledge gained from mishaps and inferences rather than a conversation or confession. The list of things they don’t talk about is longer than the list they do—no draft, no feelings, nothing about whatever it is that they’re doing or what it means, never anything about Jack’s prescription or why his hands sometimes shake after he talks to his dad that doesn’t end with the both of them feeling hurt and vicious. Kent knows that some of it is his fault, that he doesn’t ask the right questions or says things the wrong way, that he pushes where he shouldn’t and doesn’t when he should. He knows he holds back from saying things that he knows Jack won’t say back.

Jack shifts once again, closes his eyes, and Kent knows that he doesn’t have to do that, so he clears his throat, says low and soft, “Jack.”

Jack’s eyes open and he looks at him, and Kent doesn’t feel frozen like he thought he might. He’s quiet for a moment anyways, focusing on the bumps of Jack’s spine beneath his finger and the way his knee is beginning to ache trapped between Jack’s and the way Jack is looking at him.

“What?” he says.

“Gonna miss you,” Kent says, and it doesn’t feel stupid or desperate or embarrassing, even when Jack doesn’t say anything back and the silence stretches between them.

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to sarah for going along with it when i was like "hey remember when you wrote a shameless fic and then i wrote the same fic in a different characters pov? what if we??? did that again?" also for doing all the heavy lifting and being patient with me for being a slow writer. i love you and i'm gay etc.
> 
> this is the first thing i've written for omgcp and it's probably the most self-indulgent thing i've ever written and that's saying a lot considering i once wrote mickey milkovich getting a ring tattooed on his ring finger. that being said tell me what u think anyways. :)
> 
> (ps two months ago i didn't care about jp. lmao. haha. oh my god i'm suffering. oh my god.)
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr!](http://lardoduans.tumblr.com)


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